Image: Mark Ogge on X: mockup of Offshore Gas approvals process
Labor is rolling back the weak environmental and indigenous consultation with regards to Offshore Gas development.
The Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Safety and Other Measures) Bill 2024 is currently being debated before Easter to push this through parliament before the promised update to National environment Laws with the Environment Protection Biodiversity and Conservation Act is updated.
See our previous post on 23 February 2024: Fossil Gas Trojan horse: Offshore Gas, CCS Safety Bill may relax environment approval conditions
The Australian Conservation Foundation on Monday severely criticized the latest Labor amendments to their own bill. ACF’s Annika Reynolds (they/them) said the changes did not deal with concerns raised by conservationists and First Nations leaders.
“The fact the government is making these changes shows the deep flaws in the bill as it was introduced,” they said.
“The changes allow for exemptions from Australia’s environment law for offshore gas project approvals to be switched off by the Environment Minister if she is not satisfied that changes to the regs are not inconsistent with ecologically sustainable development principles.
“The double negative doesn’t provide much confidence for people who value nature protection or First Nations’ rights to say no to projects they don’t want on their Country.
“It is extraordinary for the Albanese government to be preparing to limit First Nations rights, then justify it as ‘not inconsistent with’ ecologically sustainable development.
“This bad piece of legislation risks pre-empting the government’s nature positive reforms.
“This bill seeks to permanently change aspects of the offshore gas assessment regime just before some of the most contentious offshore gas projects in Australia’s history – including Santos’ Barossa gas project – are assessed.
“ACF maintains that Part 2 of Schedule 2 of the bill should be withdrawn,” they said.
ACF Media release 25 March 2024
Friends of the Earth were also highly critical of this Offshore Gas bill fronting up to Senate Committees. No More Gas Coordinator Freja Leonard’s testimony:
Offshore Fossil Gas Campaigner Jeff Waters’ testimony highlighted the difference given in listening to different advocates on the Offshore Gas Bill:
Opposition MP Gavin Pearce voiced the Coalition parties support for the Bill in the second reading debate. Of course it helps their Fossil Fuel mates which both they and the Labor Party accept donations from.
No Labor MP got up at the second reading debate on Monday to justify downgrading the already weak consultation and approvals process that presently sits with the Environment Minister and the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Just after 6pm on Monday the Leader of the house, Tony Burke, moved to close debate on second readings.
On Tuesday the Leader of the Australian Greens was calling for Labor to delay or reverse its Offshore Gas Bill or the Greens would oppose the amended New Vehicle Efficiency Standards (NVES) legislation that Labor also wants to introduce.
“If Labor really values the NVES bill, Madeline King should withdraw her blatant attempt to ignore First Nations voices and fast-track climate-destroying gas projects,” Bandt said, according to The Age Report.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the government had promised to improve environmental protections and Indigenous consultation but had now been “caught talking out of both sides of their mouth”. “The sneaky gas loophole clause in this bill will not pass the parliament this week and Labor should drop it permanently,” Hanson-Young said in the Age Report.
Independant MP Zali Steggall (Warringah – Tony Abbott’s old electorate) has proposed an amendment to the bill that would remove the resources minister’s power to alter environmental regulations. “It is incredibly important that proper environmental assessment and listening to First Nations people occur in relation to offshore gas waters,” Steggall said, according to The Age.
The Monday Debate on Offshore Gas legislation
Brisbane Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown voiced her reaction to the bill in an amendment: “The government’s first piece of legislation since the Voice that directly affects First Nations people is one that completely strips them of their voice in the fight against Australia’s powerful gas cartel. Despite their supposed commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and strengthening environment safeguards, the government is shamefully teaming up with the coalition to push through legislation that allows gas companies to completely disregard the concerns of traditional owners. What a disgrace.”
Watson-Brown went on, “Labor promised at the last election to strengthen environmental laws. Now they’re siding with the coalition to hand over power to the pro-gas resources minister. What a sick joke. We’re in the middle of a climate crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and a housing crisis, and the Labor government is spending its time doing everything it can to prop up the profits of gas corporations, not lifting a finger for everyday people. “
Leader of the Greens Adam Bandt, in seconding the amendment, suggested the bill be delayed until after the Government’s promised environmental reform package has passed both houses. He called out various Labor backbenchers, including Wills MP Peter Khalil for not speaking in the debate,
Not one Labor member has the guts to come in here and speak to this bill. Not one. Not the member for Macnamara, not the member for Wills, not the member for Cooper, not the member for Sydney, not the member for Richmond—none of them are prepared to come in here and even speak to this bill. Labor and Liberal are trying to rush a bill through right now to fast-track gas projects and take away First Nations voices.
The debate on this bill must be adjourned until after we hear what the government intends to do around its environment reforms. If we don’t do it that way, if we rush this dirty deal with the Leader of the Opposition and the climate deniers in the Liberal Party and Labor Party, if they rush this legislation through today, then it will take away the rights of First Nations people to be consulted on projects as they currently enjoy it, if the resources minister so decides. It will render completely pointless huge swathes of the election promise that Labor gave to us about strengthening environmental reforms, because what the bill will do is carve out big chunks of our environment laws and approvals and give it over to the gas-loving resources minister, who, under the primary section of this bill, will be able to say, ‘Even the rules put in place by John Howard back in 2014 don’t need to be followed anymore’.
It is a dirty deal between Labor and Liberal done at the behest of the big gas corporations, and they are trying to sneak it through in the week before Easter with no debate, when not even one member of their backbench has the guts to come in and explain. Why? Because they know they will be standing up to explain that, in their first legislative act affecting First Nations people since the referendum, they are taking away First Nations voices, if the resources minister so determines.
Brisbane Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather also spoke on the bill calling out Labor’s climate inaction:
We’re running out of time. We’re running out of time to stop runaway climate change. What this government should be doing is bringing bills to parliament to fast-track the phase-out of coal and gas, and, at the very least, ban new coal and gas. Instead, what this parliament is debating is a bill that will effectively make it easier for large gas projects to be approved in Australia and that will override the opposition, in particular, of First Nations groups, who have put up a remarkable fight against really large gas projects in this country.
This is genuinely remarkable. It’s remarkable when the science is telling us that, right now, we are on the brink of global catastrophe. Over the last few years, Australia has already been smashed by record awful, destructive bushfires that have tragically taken lives, devastating floods, devastating heatwaves, and droughts in some parts of the country at the same time. What this government should be doing is looking at how to stop any new massive gas projects. We know Santos has written to the Minister for Resources asking for changes along these lines, changes that will make it easier for gas corporations to bypass existing, already very weak environmental laws. Now, just as we’re debating sea surface temperatures around the world reaching record heights, and just as we’re on the brink of a climate catastrophe, where people have already lost lives, we stand here trying the best we can to delay a bill that will allow projects like Santos’s Barossa project, a giant gas carbon bomb. Just as we’re trying to stop that, this is a bill that will make it easier for it that be approved.
One of the things this government likes to attempt to do is to pretend that Australia doesn’t have much of a role to play in stopping climate change—’We’re just a small part player’—except for the fact that Australia is the third-largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world. There are two countries ahead of us, Saudi Arabia and Russia—not exactly auspicious company, is it?
Adam Bandt spoke again in the debate giving a story on some of the indigenous voices being silenced by certain parts buried deep in this bill.
I want to tell you about Dennis Tipakalippa. He is an elder and a senior lawman and a traditional owner of the Munupi clan, and he lives on the Tiwi Islands. Santos wanted to come and still wants to come and build a massive gas project in his clan’s sea country. Mr Tipakalippa has been brave enough to take on the massive gas giant Santos and take them to court. He took them to court and won. The Full Court of the Federal Court, when it went on appeal, backed him up. They said ‘Yes, you are right.’ What was a court case about? It was about him on behalf of his people, the First Nations traditional owners, saying, ‘If you want to do this, then under existing law you need to come and consult me.’ Do you know what Santos said when it went to court? Santos said, ‘No, he’s not a relevant person under the law. We don’t have to consult him.’ That is what they argued. ‘We don’t have to talk to First Nations owners and listen to their voices.’ The court disagreed.
But then Santos went and complained to the minister and wrote her a letter and said, referencing this court decision, ‘These terrible court decisions that these First Nations people keep winning are tying us up too much. You need to change the law.’ They referenced another court decision from one of their mates in Woodside, where Raelene Cooper, a custodian of Murujuga in north-west Western Australia, took Woodside to court. They wanted to start seismic testing on her sea country. The court backed her and said, ‘Yes, you can’t just go ahead without properly consulting them. You’ve got to sit down and do it. Santos said that was terrible as well: these court decisions that these are First Nations and traditional owners keep winning, where, heaven forbid, they demand the right to be consulted, are slowing down our multibillion-dollar gas projects on their Country, projects that are huge climate bombs, that these First Nations people are saying they have the right to be heard about and to oppose.
What does the minister do after getting this letter from Santos? The minister says, ‘Sure; I am prepared to change the rules so that the consultation requirements can be weakened and First Nations voices don’t have to be listened to in the way that the court has said they have to. You know what the minister said? The current consultation system is unworkable. The Full Court of the Federal Court said the rules are workable. They are working for the First Nations owners, who get to be heard. They’re not working for Santos or the Woodside, because they have to go and talk to First Nations owners. The minister says, ‘I don’t care.’ And the minister brings this piece of legislation to the parliament.
What does this piece of legislation do? It says that even the weak consultation rights that First Nations people have, under a plan that was put in place by John Howard, can now be ignored if the resource minister says so. The resource minister gets to say ‘You do not have to comply with the consultation and the other rules that were put in place by John Howard if I so decide.’ The minister gets to decide that the basic rights of consultation no longer apply. Why? Because Santos has asked for it. This is from a government that said it wanted to hear First Nations voices, that took the country to a referendum. We campaigned together with the government for a successful ‘yes’ vote, and we shared the disappointment when we couldn’t put into our Constitution a provision that said there will be a voice for First Nations peoples. We took the Prime Minister and the government at face value when they said they wanted to hear what First Nations voices have to say. It seems that promise was paper thin because the first piece of legislation about First Nations consultation and rights that the government is bringing to this parliament is one that takes away the rights that First Nations peoples have, because the big corporations have asked for it. It is no wonder the race baiters and climate deniers in the coalition are lining up to support the bill. Doesn’t that tell you something, Labor—that the support you’re getting for this is from the climate deniers in the coalition who spread misinformation to defeat the Voice in the first place?
Why is Labor breaking an election promise and working with the climate deniers and race baiters in the coalition to weaken our environment laws, fast-track gas projects and take away First Nations voices? That’s what this legislation does. I suspect a bunch of people in Labor didn’t know about it when it was slipped through by the resources minister, because this is one schedule in an act that’s about worker safety. The legislation we’re debating here is about worker safety. The caucus was probably told that this is a worker safety bill, but buried in it is this provision that lets the resources minister write a great big exemption for the gas giants in this country to go ahead and do whatever they want to do. Even though the Federal Court has said it’s illegal, even though laws John Howard put in place would have said it’s illegal, they get a free pass and get to work around all that thanks to this Labor government. This is at a time when some people in northern New South Wales haven’t been able to get back into their homes since the floods, when people in Queensland fear every time the weather gets hot or when there are reports of more storms because it could mean they lose their homes yet again to extreme weather events. It comes at a time when, over summer, in some parts of this country, the temperature didn’t drop at night for consecutive nights in a row and parents struggled to get their kids to bed and elderly people suffered just as they did during the Black Summer, when more people died from the heatwaves than from the tragic bushfires.
We are hurtling towards climate catastrophe. The UN Secretary-General has said we are in an era of global boiling. A 1½ degree target our Pacific island neighbours are pleading with us to meet may well be breached, and that means goodbye to their homes. As we are told, a bare minimum for tackling the climate crisis is to stop opening new coal, oil and gas projects because there’s just not enough room in the atmosphere to put more climate pollution in it. What does Labor do? Labor brings a bill to this parliament to fast-track new gas climate bombs. Labor says: ‘We care about climate. We’re passing electric vehicle legislation.’ I tell you what: even just one new big gas project approved under this fast-track law that Labor and the Liberals are ramming through will wipe out all the gains from the electric vehicle projects and legislation. Approving just one new gas project under this law is the equivalent of ripping solar panels off four million roofs in this country.
We’re saying to Labor very clearly: enough of the greenwashing, and enough of saying you want to put more electric cars on the road and solar panels on people’s roofs, while quietly doing a dirty deal with the Liberals to fast-track new gas projects that cook people’s future. There can be no new coal and gas projects for us to have any chance of having a safer climate. The decisions we make now will reverberate for generations because the thing about the climate crisis is that once we breach a certain threshold, and the planet gets too hot, climate change becomes runaway. Our kids and our grandkids won’t be able to rein it in. It will be too late. The decisions that we make now, right here in this parliament, will determine what life is like for our kids and our grandkids. It will determine what life is like for primary school students alive today as to whether or not parts of this country become uninhabitable during their lifetime.
Just think about that: the decisions that we make now will determine whether parts of this country are habitable for kids at primary school right now. This is an emergency. We need to be pulling out all stops. And what does Labor do? Labor brings forward a law to fast-track new oil and gas projects. Astounding! People will look back at this in decades and go: ‘We can’t believe Labor and the Liberals did that. What was Labor thinking to fast-track new gas projects in the middle of a climate crisis?’
Independant MP Dr Helen Haines from INdi, Country Victoria, also spoke against the Bill: “This is poor governance, and I will not be supporting this bill. Like the Nature Repair Market Bill and the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill last year, this bill is once again putting the cart before the horse. It’s making changes that could greatly impact the natural environment before we’ve seen the long promised bill to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the EPBC Act, under the government’s Nature Positive reforms.”
Independant MP for Goldstein Zoe Daniel also called out the bill as poor governance: ” It’s becoming a bit of a habit, isn’t it? Once again, we’re being asked to rush undercooked legislation through the House and, worse, once again the government is packaging two utterly unrelated legislative objectives into a single bill. Now we’re seeing the government make urgent twelfth hour amendments to its own legislation in light of significant interest group and crossbench concerns—and, it seems, the belated concerns of some of its own backbench, who initially took at face value the caucus briefing from the resources minister. It seems they only woke up to what was going on once crossbenchers raised the alarm after a similarly anodyne briefing from the minister.”
Independant MP for Kooyong Dr Monique Ryan also castigated Labor over this Bill: “This legislation is a line-in-the-sand moment for the Albanese government. It’s ironic that that line in the sand is three miles offshore. The Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Safety and Other Measures) Bill 2024 should improve safety outcomes for Australia’s offshore resources sector workforce. Some parts of the legislation—the ones which are named in its title—are uncontroversial. Others are deeply concerning, and they speak volumes about the Albanese government’s unhealthily close relationship with the gas industry. They should not be in this bill. This retrograde piece of legislation would actually weaken the environmental protections for offshore gas put in place by the Liberal Party’s industry minister Ian Macfarlane when he approved the endorsed program in 2014. What sort of legacy would that be for Minister King?”
Update: Traditional Owners oppose Offshore Gas bill
On Tuesday Josie Alec from the Australian Conservation Foundation said First Nations people have an obligation to protect land and sea, reported SBS..
“Our law was given to us in the ground and it was given to us for the sustainability and the longevity of all life on earth,” she said.
That means my children and your children and all of our future children to come, with these projects going ahead … our children and their lives are at stake here.
“These bills that are being put through are trying to silence our voices as First Nations people.”
SBS – Traditional Owners say Labor’s gas bill is ‘a betrayal’ 27 March 2024
References
Australian Parliament House, Hansard, 25 March 2024, Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Safety and Other Measures) Bill 2024 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7149
ACF Media release 25 March 2024, Changes to offshore gas bill don’t deal with environmental and First Nations concerns, https://www.acf.org.au/changes-to-offshore-gas-bill-do-not-deal-with-environmental-and-first-nations-concerns
Image of Process Flow Diagram by Mark Ogge on X. “I know it’s tricky understanding Madeleine Kings changes to the offshore gas approval process, so I’ve mocked up a flow chart to explain it.” https://twitter.com/MarkOgge/status/1772372033503969525
Paul Karp and Elias Visontay, The Guardian, 25 Mar 2024, Labor and Coalition cut short debate on offshore gas bill labelled ‘window dressing’ https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/25/labor-albanese-government-offshore-gas-bill-opggs-first-nations
Mike Foley, The Age, 26 March 2024, Greens threaten Labor’s fuel rules over gas project push https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/greens-threaten-labor-s-fuel-rules-over-gas-project-push-20240326-p5ffc7.html
SBS – Traditional Owners say Labor’s gas bill is ‘a betrayal’, 27 March 2024, https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/labors-gas-bill-is-a-betrayal-say-traditional-owners/izjhwo7qi
Climate Action Merribek 